In year that sees the centenary celebrations of Slovene film, and
following the recent premature death of its most prominent advocate,
we are prompted to consider issues such as the impossibility of
altering the past and the destructive power of time, finality
and infinity, retrospection and irreversibility. And it is film,
which is both an experimental form and a content, that offers the
most beautiful examples of artistic approaches to rewinding the
narrative.
Expanding the space of the narrative, multiplying it and opening it up,
the process of rewinding highlights the possibility of different views
and interpretations, and the multiplication of truths.
Film theory, which studied film both as a symbolic language and a
dispositive known as the cinema, had a major impact on the flourishing
theoretical production and social critique seen in Slovenia during
the 1980s. In addition, in the last decade film theory has gone
beyond the borders of the medium, becoming a significant reference
point in contemporary art production.
The main question posed by this year's Pixxelpoint is "How does the
artistic use of new media connect the discourse about the unsteadiness
of the linear flow of events and the awareness of a total finality of
time?". We can find an answer to this even in the circular shape
of its principal venue, the Nova Gorica City Gallery: "backwards"
does not mean merely a simple transition from one point in time to
another, but implies rotation, a circular movement.
The exhibition attempts to show digital and analogue artworks whose
structure interrogates the opening and changing in the process of going
back in contradiction to the roundedness of the art form as a perfect
and finished whole.
Igor Španjol
Igor Španjol
Curriculum Vitae
Born in 1972 in Senj, Croatia. After grammar-school he studied sociology of culture and art history at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia. From 1993 to 1995 he was member of the editorial of the Studia Humaitatis publishing house. From 1996 to 1997 he worked as librarian at the Institutum Studiorum Humaitatis – Faculty for postgraduate studies in humanities, Ljubljana. Since 1994 he is involved with video art. From 1995 to 1999 he has been collaborating on different media art projects at the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts Ljubljana (Internet Portfolio – artists profiles on the web, Videospotting – video programme, Videodokument – documentation, archival and research project on video art in Slovenia). In 1998 he worked as programme coordinator at the Soros Center for Contemporary Arts-Ljubljana. Since 1999 he works as a curator in the Moderna galerija Ljubljana/Museum of Modern Art. He has lectured on media art in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Skopje, Gorizia, Paris and Kyiv. He has regularly been publishing articles, essays and texts on contemporary art in magazines (Texte zur Kunst, M'Ars, Zivot umjetosti,…) and annual catalogues of the Skuc Gallery. He is contributng editor of the weekly magazine on art and cultural events Deloskop.
Responsibilities at the Moderna galerija Ljubljana:
exploration, development, preserving, documenting and archiving of the various forms of media art such as video, video installations, net and software based art in digital/interactive/network media and technology based performative arts practice,
curating of temporary exhibitions with emphasis on media art,
(co)curating of permanent display of secected works form the museum collection,
curating of the Archives on Loan series of monthly screenings/presentations of video artists at the Informative cetre of the Moderna galerija,
organising of conferences, lectures, panel discussions and study groups.
Title at the Moderna galerija Ljubljana: media art curator
Curated exhibitions:
This Art Is Recycled, Galerija Skuc, Ljubljana, 1997 (a part of the curatorial programe World of Art at the Skuc Gallery, concept of recyclation in contemporary slovene art, catalogue editor)
Lujo Vodopivec, Parcours, Moderna galerija Ljubljana, 1999 (a retrospective, sculpture, catalogue editor)
Aspects/Positions - 50 Years of Art in Central Europe 1049-1999, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, 2000 (curatorial assistant for Slovenia)
Reality Check - Recent developments in British Photography and Video, Moderna galerija Ljubljana 2002 (curatorial adviser)
Slovene Art 1975-85, Moderna galerija Ljubljana, 2003 (together with Igor Zabel, historical survey, catalogue editor)
Siete gia li – L'arte contemporanea in Slovenia, Genova, Loggia della Mercanzia, 2003
No rest for Magna Purga, Kostja Gatnik, Moderna galerija, 2004 ( a retrospective, catalogue editor)
Slovene Art 1985-95, Moderna galerija Ljubljana, 2004 (together with Igor Zabel, historical survey, catalogue editor)
Publications:
Videodokument : video umetnost v slovenskem prostoru 1969-1998 = video art in Slovenia 1969-1998., Ljubljana: Open Society Institute - Slovenia, 1999
Parcours: pregledna razstava, Ljubljana: Moderna galerija, 1999
Konceptualna umetnost 60-ih in 70-ih let. This art is recycled, Ljubljana: Galerija ŠKUC, 1997
Mestomorfoze, Ljubljana: Založba /*cf., Sorosov center za sodobne umetnosti, 1999
Umetnina: kaj je to?, Ljubljana: Založba /*cf., Sorosov center za sodobne umetnosti, 1999
Rabe fotografije, Ljubljana: Založba /*cf. , Sorosov center za bsodobne umetnosti, 1999
Vulgata, Ljubljana: Moderna galerija, 2000
Andy Warhol - življenje in delo (1928-1987, Ljubljana: Moderna galerija, 2001
Reality check: nova dogajanja v britanski fotografiji in videu, Ljubljana: Moderna galerija, 2002
Do roba in naprej : slovenska umetnost 1975-1985, Ljubljana: Moderna galerija, 2003
Selected articles:
Apolonija v kontekstu prostora / Apolonija in the context of space, M'ars, No. 3-4, 1999
Busheva Amerika: od puča do vojne, Ljubljana: UMco, 2001
